• Voices: SSATB / SSAAB & piano [& optional chorus]
• Composer: KINKEL, Johanna (1810 - 1858)
• Genre: Musical Comedy (1829)
• Duration: 11 - 12 minutes
• 979070-8082-59-0 [2nd edition]

a light hearted work for 5 vocalists (with optional choir) that is sung throughout, and provides lots of opportunity for characterisation, to get your audience laughing.

THE STORYLINE: can five birds stop arguing for long enough to rehearse a song together? 

First, the cuckoo is upset because everyone is late to the rehearsal. Then they squabble about who should be the conductor, who is the best singer, and which of them was responsible for singing a wrong note!

Johanna Kinkel was only nineteen years old when she composed the words and music, but the quality is that of a mature, fun-loving, musician. She conducted the first performance in Bonn in 1838, and then again, eight years later, in Berlin, having quickly written it out from memory, in order to perform with Bettina von Arnim plus various of her friends and relatives at a birthdayparty.
Sing it in the original German or with the faithful and sing-able English translation created by Roz Trübger. 

(*n.b> Rabe translates as Raven and Papagai as Parrot but ,for the purposes of this edition, Crow and Parakeet are used for their matching number of syllables.)

Johanna Kinkel (also Mathieux, Mockel) made her mark in the worlds of both music and literature and her life makes a fascinating story. Born in Bonn (Germany) she studied music with Beethoven’s teacher. As an adult, she spent time in Berlin, and was a friend of Fanny Mendelssohn, before she got caught up in the revolutionary events of 1849,eventually helping her husband, Gottfried Kinkel, to escape from Spandau prison before emigrating with him and their four children to London. There her short life ended tragically when she fell (or was pushed?) from her bedroom window in near Paddington station.